Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1887-10-13
INDIANS OF ALASKA.
Shamefully Treated by the Government
Their Wonderful Initiative Power.

Miss Kate Field, the well-known
lecturer and writer, returned from
Alaska recently. To a Chronicle re-
porter she said:
ALASKA is deeply interesting
country, and it has been shamefully
treated by the United States Govern
ment. The United States acquired the
country twenty years ago, and up to
1876 it was under military rule. Then
that was withdrawn, and for ten years
there was no Government whatever,
and even now the Probate Court and
the United States Commissioners can
hardly be called that. This is not Just
to the people there, either Indians or
whites. When the country was pur-
chased it was distinctly understood
that schools were to be established for
the education of the Indians and white
children. Now, after the lapse of
twenty years, they are only talking of
building schoolhouses.
'The Alaska Indians are a different
kind of people from the Indians here,
and the Government has never under
stood with whom it had to deal. In
stead of the Indians improving under
its care, since nothing has been done
towards educating them, they have
become utterly demoralized by con-
tact with the whites. This is particu-
larly the case with the women. The
Government is responsible for this de-
moraliZation. The natives are re-
markably ingenious and would require
but little training to become good citi-
zens. One can earn living so easily
there that there is no hard work.
They have but to cast the line or set
the seine, and are supplied with fish,
or if they want game, they have but
to take the gun and they can get all
they wish. The natives possess re-
markable powers of imitation. Here
is some of their work" and Miss Field
showed the reporter some of the curios
collected during her trip.
To explain what they could do as
silversmiths, Miss Field exhibited an
engraved silver band which she wore
upon her arm, the engraving of which
was a work of skill. The collection
comprises closely woven mats with a
Greek pattern worked in them and
curiously carved ''totums," or family
histories, which, Miss Field said, stood
outside the Indian huts to the hight of
forty or fifty feet, one representing
the history of the fathers side of the
family and the other the mothers.
All the natives belong to the Bear or
Eagle family, and the uppermost
carved figure on the totum is either an
eagle or bear. The collection COM
prises also miniature canoes of the
Alaskan and Chinook patterns, "medi-
cine" rattles carried by the medicine
men," a shepherds pipe, like that car
ried by peasant in one of Watteau's
pastorals; native drums and tambour-
ines, woven baskets; a ladle in the
shape OF an eagle; stone scooping-
knife, with which the natives formerly
dug out their canoes; a native gam
bling layout, consisting of thirty pieces
of highly polished hard wood; strange
ly carved wooden spoons, some of
which are over 200 years old; charms
in the shape of fishes, and many other
objects of interest.
A Chilcat blanket was shown by
Miss Field, upon which is related the
entire history of the tribe. Every
Chilcat woman possesses one of these
blankets, which are woven of the
wool of the mountain sheep, and take
about three months patient labor to
make. The dyes with which the
blanket is colored are obtained from
roots, and the natives have a variety
of them from which they obtain many
colors and with which they dye their
baskets and other work They have
now adopted aniline dyes, however,
and this, in Miss Fields opinion,
spoiled their work from an artistic
point of view.
To show the peculiar initiative pow
ers of the Indians, Miss Field exhibit
ed a hat woven of straw in the Chi
nese fashion, which had been copied
by the natives from the hats worn by
the Chinese brought over to Alaska by
Capt Meares many years ago. A
Navy officers cap, initiated in straw,
was also shown.
In ending the interview, Miss Field
said that the Government should do
something for Alaska. for the natives
were not a people to be despised, to
say nothing of the whites there. She
did not care to express an opinion in
regard to the Asiatic origin of the
Alaskan Indians, but she said that in
her mind there was no doubt that
Japanese junks had been wrecked on
the coast and that there was a strain
of japanese blood running through
the native race.-San Francisco Cbron-
tcle.